[Zack still doesn't get it (omen? he's heard that before but has no context, and not from Sephiroth) but he's willing to accept his lack of knowledge for what it is, for now. It's hardly what's important in the moment.]
Okay, uh, fine. Lead the way, or- carry me, whatever.
[He can technically fly - made his way here, after all - but in the aftermath of the mess that happened in Exile, his wings aren't in top shape right now, and he's slower than usual. He'd prefer Sephiroth not know, for... multiple reasons.]
[In case of needing quick getaways or preparing for a fight, letting opponents know your weaknesses is always a bad idea!
But at least this isn't another tortured innocent being, warped by Jenova's power. There's a long, lingering silent moment as one last feel for any signs of a sudden angry blond out of nowhere before the hound dissolves into a thick black mist, reforming into something very much like the racing shape Sephiroth preferred, crouching in the sand for ease of finding a place on a scaly back. The markings are a bit different, the heavy scarring is still there and the eyes are still yellow, but the shape is made for swiftness; speed is the easy part. It's tangible to the touch, as it ever has been.
It waits only long enough for Zack to settle in place before taking off, gaining speed rapidly and beelining exactly for where it knows it needed to go, silent. Desert gives way to shore, and then ocean. The little scattered islands off the coast of Cruel Summer are not particularly noteworthy for the most part.
Except for the one that's gained a house, hard to spot from the mainland. A strangely out of place looking ordinary white house with blue shutters and a porch, a half-built dock and several cut down trees still lying where they'd fallen. And still seated on the porch, relic still balanced on one bare foot, Sephiroth. He still hasn't figured out how to hide the horns and scales and fangs and tail, or isn't bothering.
The shifted hound's landing is no more ceremonious than its takeoff had been, landing in a spray of sand and sliding a bit before coming to a stop at the sea's edge. It's close enough to talk, if Zack doesn't want to get too close.]
The bullet holes are gone.
[When Sephiroth speaks up, it comes from two different directions, both boy and scaly monstrosity, but only for a moment, as the not-Omen dissolves again into black mist and fades in the next gust of ocean wind.]
[It's at least half because he doesn't want Sephiroth to feel guilty about it, although right now he can't begin to guess what the kid is feeling, so. Best avoid it altogether. That aspect of it, anyway. The rest really needs to be talked about.
He'd expected it to come up when they reached their destination, but Sephiroth beats him to it. Zack is quiet for a handful of seconds, before he shrugs his shoulders.]
That guy... he wasn't me. It could've been me, in another world. But I never went back. There was some kinda trial or whatever, those ribbons at the bonfire, up on Never Fade? One got stuck on me, changed me.
[He remembers it. That part... it may stick with him for a long time, maybe forever. Those ghosts of memories, another man's - monster's? - life. Someone who was turned, manipulated, made to kill and hurt the ones he loved. All for an alien he despises and a creature that looks like his old best friend. He remembers the light leaving her eyes, the wounded hatred in Cloud's.
But-]
He wasn't me, [he says again, more quietly, halfway to himself. It wasn't. It wasn't him.]
As much as Sephiroth was the man who haunted their nightmares, it absolutely was Zack. And for all that this other, terribly tormented version had been a plaything, he had also been unerringly right. His hate and fury were not misplaced, that much had been proven then and there, hadn't it?
And the memory lingered.
He doesn't budge. Aside from the tug of ocean breeze on hair and clothes he might as well be a statue, expression carefully inscrutable. If Zack remembered, then the memory wouldn't just be of Exile, but everything that came before it in some other world. Trial or not, that world ... likely existed somewhere. The events would still... feel real.]
He had his freedom, in the end. I don't know if it's worth the price he paid.
[The price Zack paid. What would it be like, remembering killing one lover? Raising a weapon against the other? His own wounded fury had faded a bit with time, but the scales hadn't. No wings and halo returned. They'd been right about him all along, and all he'd done was prove it.]
... I thought she sent you back to your time. She told me once that there's a chance of altering fate even for the dead, and when ...that other you appeared, it seemed.. [Excuses. Hollow, empty excuses to his own ears, how must it sound to someone else? How must it sound to his victim? How would it have sounded to the numberless dead monsters he'd practiced on?] If she brought you back that way on purpose, then she wouldn't be likely to remove it, just call it 'potential' and let others deal with it. I knew it would hurt to do it myself, but that seemed better than doing nothing.
[Except it wasn't. And he was too quick to want to personally interfere, to do something with those abominable powers than cause damage. Actually helping with them instead? Try to save the man who'd said-
[Isn't the whole point of the argument that he isn't that same man who haunted them? Although that... for Zack, is a little harder to believe in than it used to be. He's trying, but Sephiroth hadn't made it easy, isn't making it easy now. That's why he has to do this, though. Text, even voice over the relic, it's too impersonal. Too easy to hide behind the screen. He needs to see this himself, face to face. The aftermath on a person, not a mask.
The price of freedom is steep, he remembers saying to himself, or something to that effect, on that hill before he died. Coming here, finding Cloud and Aerith, being able to live as they have here- that's a hell of a lot closer to freedom than what the other version of him got. There was nothing free about that life... death. Cloud'll probably kill him for real, one day, in that alternate timeline. Even freed from Sephiroth's enslavement, if he remembers what he did to Aerith in the Lifestream... yeah, there's no freedom from that.
He's not here to argue about the concept of freedom or whatever else, though. He'd rather not argue at all, but that might be inevitable. He doesn't want to fight. But he might want to shout a little bit.]
Why'd you keep wanting to try, after you saw what it did? What happened to finding Baba Yaga?
[It's one thing to try, to see if something will work, if it'll help. It's... another thing to want to keep going, after seeing... that. It wasn't helping, it didn't. He hesitates to call it torture - it wasn't intentional pain, just a side effect of the real effort - but it sure sounded close. It sounded like blood murder. Felt like it. The effort of helping was killing Zack.
He doesn't think he'd have had the resilience to try again, if he'd heard a noise like that.]
Because it was you to me. I didn't know it was a Trial, that it'd probably just fix itself after a few days or weeks, and the you I know would be put back. All I had was the idea you got sent back, the way I keep getting sent back, and that was the result.
[It felt uncomfortably vulnerable, having his new location of safety and distance no longer secure and isolated after such little time.
Maybe he deserved that, from Zack.
Would he have done any of it, if he knew it was a Trial? ... Probably.]
Pain's temporary. It didn't seem worse than things I survived before. I knew it would hurt but it wouldn't last. I don't know why there was wounds reopening, that's never happened before.
[His grasp of what is and is not normal levels of pain is badly, wildly skewed thanks to the labs. Outright torture was simply part of training. He always recovered eventually.
The cries of gulls make a strange backdrop.]
If Baba Yaga was the reason some version of you was here like that, it didn't seem like she'd help. And ... knowing how you and Cloud feel about her.. I thought it'd be better this way. It would be terrible for a little bit but then it would be over
[Zack takes a moment, then, to really pull in on his surroundings. He hasn't spent much time in this area, outside of Cruel Summer proper, he didn't have especially good or bad ties to the ocean. (Besides the fact that every vacation there has sucked, historically.) He didn't even know there were houses here. Maybe there weren't before, maybe, based on the construction status at the dock, this whole thing is new. An island house is supposed to be a getaway destination. Seph sure did get away.
He hadn't been in a good state back in Exile to fully register the changes in Sephiroth, either. The horns, the tail. Telltale indicators of a myth. It's... strange, to see. After so long. He's been in Folkmore long enough to know that Myth doesn't mean evil, necessarily. It's a frame of mind more than a judgment call. There's some cool Myths around. Also some asshole Legends, surely. They're not defined by what Thirteen thinks of them. He wonders what Sephiroth does, though.
What Seph says isn't... wrong, not entirely. Pain is usually temporary. It's just that the pain Zack's more familiar with, to that degree, only has one ending. He's felt it 3 times now, and it all went the same way, in the end. Just... this one, someone came in time to stop it.
He doesn't like it.]
Why did you call Cloud?
[He's grateful, mind. Without Cloud's interference, he'd probably be dead. Probably also brought back by Thirteen, sure, since that's how it works. But then Cloud would likely kill Sephiroth, and even Zack isn't sure they could come back from that. The "what if" of it all kind of spooks him. They came so close. There is, somewhere in what's happened and what could happen, a point of no return. Just like back home, when Nibelheim burned and Sephiroth proved he didn't care anymore. Zack's not there yet in this world, but this was nearer to it than he's comfortable with. Knowing what he knows, now. Still not sure how to ask about that one.]
[This is the only house for possibly over a hundred miles in any direction, except Tides far below. It's style doesn't even follow most of Folkmore's aesthetic, didn't really belong in any given town, and certainly out of place on little islands in the middle of nowhere, but it's new. The land is still being cleared, what there is of it. It had cost him most of the Lore he'd had saved up.
Isolation was better.]
Didn't think about it, just did it.
[This is a mumble, he still didn't really have an answer for why beyond some autopilot certainty that Cloud would definitely do his best to make sure Zack was safe.
Which. Well. That was true. He knew it was their combined resolution that was able to free them in the end from his final, vicious command.]
I realized afterward that there really ... was no way it wasn't all going to be my fault again and I shouldn't have said anything- [And here is a brief flicker of something that sounds awfully like some deeply felt, ugly anger, expression briefly darkening, but control or some other emotion erases it back to muted unhappiness and the edges of clinical chill.] But by then he was already on his way. Reunion made certain he'd find us. I wanted Vincent but he's ...
[A clawed hand raises slightly, a small negating gesture. Gone. No starlight ball to be found. It's been too long now.]
[It's in that moment that Zack feels simultaneously frustrated at the situation and his own ignorance; he's been out of the loop when it comes to Vincent, which in part is because he never got along with the guy and in part not his responsibility, that's Cloud and Aerith's friend not his. When Aerith vanished, so much else went to the backburner. Neither he nor Cloud were in a good state to keep tabs on Vincent, nevermind what Sephiroth was getting into. Kid was young but still a SOLDIER, he didn't need a babysitter.
There's one thing he did need, apparently. Something he wasn't getting from an ex-Turk who started this all out by shooting him. Something he definitely wasn't getting during all those years at Shinra, with Hojo. And... something he hasn't been getting from Zack, either. He's been thinking about that, in between the nightmares and the horror and the need to stay far, far away. (A feeling they'd evidently shared these past several weeks.)
Few things he needs to get addressed before they can think about approaching that, though.]
Is that the only thing you regret? Calling him? Or rushing?
[He kinda doubts that, considering the vibe. Seph's repressing, it showed for only a moment but Zack's watching for it, now.]
[None of it is Zack's responsibility. His only duty was to live his own life, while Thirteen continued to allow him to have one.
There's no immediate answer, he just pulls his knees up to his chest, the ridged scaly tail coiling around him in an ineffective barrier. Text was nice, text allowed distance, allowed time to measure and prepare, but without it, silence works while he tried to formulate something that wasn't just immediate reaction. In a few more years his masks will be good enough to obscure everything, but muting is the best he can do. Resignation is still a bitter taste, unwelcome. The coil of gray-silver scale tightens slowly around himself much the way he'd use his wings when sufficiently upset, but there's no reassurance to be found. He was still angry about much of it, but that too didn't matter. None of it went the way it was supposed to.]
No. [A breath.] It wasn't a lie or a manipulation, I wanted to help. I didn't just want to ... experiment, or see what I could do, I know what I can do. But he was right too. [That other Zack and Cloud were right about so many things.] Both of them were. I've thought about it a lot; it was as much about me, and I didn't care how much pain it cost. I wanted to save the only person I've ever met stupid enough to believe that I..
[He shakes his head slightly to dismiss the lingering thought. It didn't matter.]
[Yeah Sephiroth really doesn't get to decide what is or isn't his duty, thankfully. Because Zack likes getting to decide that himself, thank you.
Zack waits while he thinks it through, at first patiently, but because Zack is Zack he ends up pacing a bit, boots shuffling through the sand. He doesn't do his standard squats, though, which if nothing else is proof that he's taking this seriously, paying attention. Squats are for less serious wait sessions, not "please explain what the fuck".
And when Sephiroth starts talking, he stops, and he listens. Quietly, his gaze focused, though not always on the teen himself. He gazes off at the ocean, hands on his hips, watching the clouds in the sky, the sweeping waves. It's nice, here. He can see why Seph is hiding out in this place. Kind of reminds him of Costa del Sol, water and sun, a place that should have been a vacation but often ended up just a reminder of some lousy experiences.
If Sephiroth's goal was to get a rankle out of him for the 'stupid' comment, he doesn't rise to it. He's been called worse, for certain. (He doesn't agree that it was stupid, either. Nor, unspoken, that it didn't matter. It mattered a lot, still.)
I don't regret the outcome. It did exactly what it was supposed to.
[The word choice is deliberate. Even if it was quiet, there's no lie. There were things he absolutely did regret about it, but not the outcome.
It hadn't been Zack, supposedly. Those were the bitter, furious, deeply painful words of another man. Except everything told him it was in all the ways that matter.]
The point was to give them an order they'd fight with everything they had, and to make them feel even a little bit of what they made me feel while doing it. Cloud got what he deserved; I don't regret that either. He deserves worse than what I did, if any of the things people keep claiming about me being 'just a kid' were ever even marginally true. He's wanted a monster to fight since he found out I was here and pushed for it every time we crossed paths.
[There's those little flickers of masked fury again.]
Isn't it convenient he now has the keys to make sure no version of me can ever control him again.
[Zack's eyes narrow, taking a sharp breath in, and forcing himself to hold it rather than speak immediately. That gets a rise out of him, much as he struggles to fight it. It's a half-non-answer, deliberately chosen. Zack's not the sharpest guy ever, but he can recognize the ongoing obfuscation. Cloud, his Cloud, deserving that? Absolutely not.]
No one deserved that. Not you, either. What he'd said or done to you before, when you hadn't done anything, that wasn't right. I pushed back at him for you, because I believed it. But what he walked in on, what you were doing that day- that was you. You made that choice. What you wanted to happen doesn't change how it looked.
[He doesn't uncoil from where he sits, the tailhold around himself simply tightens slightly.]
You pushed back? He still strangled me to death. He still threatens and tries to intimidate every time we cross paths, demanding I do things exactly his way and retaliating when I don't, even if his directions were ridiculously vague. Anything I could have done would have been his latest excuse to attack, even if I'd done nothing at all. And even when I told him what I was trying to do, he twisted it into being proof of what he already believed.
[And a part of him still admired the man for all he'd accomplished. The rest of him resented it; he knew exactly how every encounter would inevitably go, pretending otherwise did no good. The only Cloud that didn't... wasn't real. And there wasn't a moment of time that passed that he wished he hadn't woken from that dream. None of this would have happened.
The hurt of having Zack's rage and hate turn on him was still fresh enough to burn anew. One hand jerks up, expression gone bitter; he knows the argument that follows, Vincent used it often enough.]
You don't have to remind me he's suffered through terrible things that justify his actions. I've been told. At great length. But he has gone out of his way to make himself my enemy, and I am not regretful for finally treating him like one. I'm not. He wanted a monster, they both did. Something to feel justified in hating. They succeeded. I'm not sorry.
[So much for not lying. He's still not good at it when emotions run high, and the bitterness dies like a candle pinched off, leaving dull pain behind in its wake. He had plenty of regrets, including that one.]
[He can't dredge up any satisfaction at Zack's surprise. It didn't change anything - Cloud's actions, or his own.
But he moves a little, straightening just enough to hold out taloned hands and mime wrapping them around an unprotected throat.]
Like getting the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube.
[It's possible his method of toothpaste acquisition is a bit harsher than most people's.
Slowly he lowers his hands again, expression returning to blankness.]
I could have dealt with it, I have all this time until now. I could have held out forever. It didn't matter if he hated me, if he killed me, if he'd do it again given the chance.
[Like getting- god. Gotta wonder what the fuck is wrong with this kid sometimes. (He knows what. He lived it for four years.)
Zack grimaces. He doesn't even know how to begin addressing all of that. This goes so much deeper than he's equipped to handle. It feels like yet another losing battle, like with Angeal, like with Genesis. Like with Sephiroth in the past, in the future, in Nibelheim when all the dreams ended.
He reminds himself: it got as bad as he did because he left. He can't leave anymore. He can't leave it alone.]
He shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I didn't know.
You probably weren't supposed to know. It doesn't matter.
[Thirteen took care of being dead before he could do it himself. The experience was not one he cared to repeat, unlike the much nicer second death.
For all that Vincent inevitably greeted his mistakes with a resigned sort of sadness, he missed the man's presence. There has been no rescue, ever, but there could at least be some solace to be found afterwards.
The teen scrubs his face with one hand, sinking a little where he sat, the moment's reignited indignation dying away again to something very like defeat.]
[Zack's quick to shake his head. There's no way he could agree on that. He won't say he wished Sephiroth had told him, though he's thinking it. He knows why. At least, he can make an educated guess. He's too close. It's not his problem. Plenty of reasons not to, probably not enough to say a damn thing.
It sucks. All of it, it sucks.]
I wish it'd worked. I know how bad you wanna fix things. [And he wishes it hadn't made everything worse.] Don't... don't do that again.
[Though he very much disagrees he doesn't argue it, he just gives a slight shrug. Experience tells him how much it matters, and that wasn't going to change. Death was transient. If anyone besides a cleric from another planet found a way to keep him down then maybe it would be more of a concern.
Mentioning it at all, knowing how meaningless it ultimately ever would be so long as death lacked teeth, really did lend weight to Cloud's words. It's all manipulation, isn't it?]
Which part.
[Even now, was any of this explanation anything more than more deception? Why bother with a lie when the truth worked just as well? For all that Zack said it wasn't him and the terrible cutting pain of his words and his hatred therefore weren't Zack's fault or responsibility, he still had those memories. It might have just as well happened to him; Sephiroth didn't know it was someone else at the time when every single sign said it absolutely was the man he knew, including his relic.
An explanation was just trying to downplay what he'd done, wasn't it?]
[The question has Zack confused again, brows furrowing, struggling against the assumption that Sephiroth's being intentionally obtuse. What else could he mean except the only thing done that they're talking about? He looks serious, though, so... okay.]
The- controlling, with Jenova. I don't care if you think it won't work anymore. Don't try it on me. You got no right. It was cruel. I didn't- I didn't think you were capable of that. I didn't deserve it.
[He'd believed in Sephiroth, before. Thought that the cruelty presented in his own timeline was an effect of Jenova, that his friend couldn't do that sort of thing without being driven by alien whispers. To experience it was... beyond wretched. He hadn't personally lived the un-life that Zack had endured, but he experienced it here, for that brief time between leaving Never Fade and fading away in the mud of Exile, remembers his body forced to move on its own, obedient to the whims of the cells in his blood and the orders of an angry teenager.
The point is this, the point is that. Intent counts for fuck all, in his mind. It might not have worked. And if Sephiroth's order had stuck, if he hadn't been able to fight it, if he'd killed Cloud like he'd been a breath away from doing- that would have been a point of no return for them. He'd just as likely tried to kill Sephiroth himself if they crossed paths after. He has limits, lines not to be crossed. Someone willing to do that to a friend is... not someone he wants to be around.]
[Before he can finish saying it, however softly it had been, he silences himself.
It didn't matter that he'd been horrified when he realized why Zack was acting so strange. It didn't matter that his final, vicious order hadn't been unprovoked, or that it wasn't something he'd ever do on a whim out of nowhere. It didn't matter that Cloud and Zack had shattered the fragile dream of being able to defy fate and really help someone, their accusations and hatred like acid in the wound left behind. None of it mattered at all, though maybe it would have if he'd chosen to act differently.
He chose to give in and be what they expected.
He chose to give up. Nobody forced him to take that pain and make it a weapon, and hit them exactly where he knew it'd hurt the worst.
That was all on him. Only him.]
I won't.
[There's no inflection in his voice to color it one way or another, leaning just enough to rest his head in his arms in unspoken surrender. Whether or not he wanted to try to puppet Zack again he couldn't anyway; Zack, as he should be, as he was meant to be, was out of his ability to control. Or that even if the other one were to reappear he wouldn't be able to bring himself to do anything about it. But that didn't need to be said, it'd be singularly unhelpful. So he doesn't. What he does add is quiet, though still audible over the hiss of waves on the sand.]
I already disposed of the remaining samples and infected monsters. I haven't gone back for further instruction.
[Zack waits at first, ready to argue. Yeah, it wasn't him. But Sephiroth thought it was him, which made him capable. The memories aren't going anywhere.
But he stops, and Zack listens instead. And when Sephiroth finishes, his shoulders slump a little, and he presses both hands to his face, rubbing them up and down.]
Okay, [he manages,] Good. Thank you.
[As he drags his hands down one final time, looking over at Sephiroth, Zack has to marvel at how young he looks. Even with the grim new features, the horns and the tail and the claws, looking less human than ever, something out of a summon materia or that freaky demon cave Genesis made him crawl through to kick his ass... even now. Hunched and hiding and quiet, he looks so young.
He takes a step forward, then another, approaching not cautiously, not angrily, just the steady normal stride Zack always uses. Whether he closes the distance fully depends on Sephiroth's reaction to his approach.]
[Was it the compulsion of Reunion that had made the beasts compliant when he slaughtered them, or did they seek release as much as Zack had? If he knew how to tune his senses to their emotions, would he have felt their hatred, their despair and rage?
Though it's absolutely certain Sephiroth knows exactly where Zack is, can hear him moving across sand and then firmer ground, he doesn't move. He hasn't really gone anywhere from his spot on his porch since Zack arrived and that wasn't changing now, resigned to whatever's coming. Whatever Zack intends, there's no effort to flee or defend himself, the creature in the shape of a guard hound still utterly absent.]
You should go, if that's it. He'll be waiting.
[It's not a dismissal, but it might as well be. Isolation was the point of making a home so far from the rest of what passed for Folkmore civilization, and he'd return to it as soon as he was able. There's less risk of hurting someone if no-one was around.
The trouble with young monsters is if allowed to, they grow up.]
[Zack makes a vague noise at the... offer? Request, maybe, but not a demand - acknowledging it but not agreeing, based on his continued movement forward. He climbs the steps, halting when he reaches the top, turns, and sits, cross-legged, right beside Sephiroth, their knees bumping.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2025-08-25 01:31 am (UTC)[Zack still doesn't get it (omen? he's heard that before but has no context, and not from Sephiroth) but he's willing to accept his lack of knowledge for what it is, for now. It's hardly what's important in the moment.]
Okay, uh, fine. Lead the way, or- carry me, whatever.
[He can technically fly - made his way here, after all - but in the aftermath of the mess that happened in Exile, his wings aren't in top shape right now, and he's slower than usual. He'd prefer Sephiroth not know, for... multiple reasons.]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-25 01:49 am (UTC)But at least this isn't another tortured innocent being, warped by Jenova's power. There's a long, lingering silent moment as one last feel for any signs of a sudden angry blond out of nowhere before the hound dissolves into a thick black mist, reforming into something very much like the racing shape Sephiroth preferred, crouching in the sand for ease of finding a place on a scaly back. The markings are a bit different, the heavy scarring is still there and the eyes are still yellow, but the shape is made for swiftness; speed is the easy part. It's tangible to the touch, as it ever has been.
It waits only long enough for Zack to settle in place before taking off, gaining speed rapidly and beelining exactly for where it knows it needed to go, silent. Desert gives way to shore, and then ocean. The little scattered islands off the coast of Cruel Summer are not particularly noteworthy for the most part.
Except for the one that's gained a house, hard to spot from the mainland. A strangely out of place looking ordinary white house with blue shutters and a porch, a half-built dock and several cut down trees still lying where they'd fallen. And still seated on the porch, relic still balanced on one bare foot, Sephiroth. He still hasn't figured out how to hide the horns and scales and fangs and tail, or isn't bothering.
The shifted hound's landing is no more ceremonious than its takeoff had been, landing in a spray of sand and sliding a bit before coming to a stop at the sea's edge. It's close enough to talk, if Zack doesn't want to get too close.]
The bullet holes are gone.
[When Sephiroth speaks up, it comes from two different directions, both boy and scaly monstrosity, but only for a moment, as the not-Omen dissolves again into black mist and fades in the next gust of ocean wind.]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-27 02:21 am (UTC)He'd expected it to come up when they reached their destination, but Sephiroth beats him to it. Zack is quiet for a handful of seconds, before he shrugs his shoulders.]
That guy... he wasn't me. It could've been me, in another world. But I never went back. There was some kinda trial or whatever, those ribbons at the bonfire, up on Never Fade? One got stuck on me, changed me.
[He remembers it. That part... it may stick with him for a long time, maybe forever. Those ghosts of memories, another man's - monster's? - life. Someone who was turned, manipulated, made to kill and hurt the ones he loved. All for an alien he despises and a creature that looks like his old best friend. He remembers the light leaving her eyes, the wounded hatred in Cloud's.
But-]
He wasn't me, [he says again, more quietly, halfway to himself. It wasn't. It wasn't him.]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-27 02:50 am (UTC)As much as Sephiroth was the man who haunted their nightmares, it absolutely was Zack. And for all that this other, terribly tormented version had been a plaything, he had also been unerringly right. His hate and fury were not misplaced, that much had been proven then and there, hadn't it?
And the memory lingered.
He doesn't budge. Aside from the tug of ocean breeze on hair and clothes he might as well be a statue, expression carefully inscrutable. If Zack remembered, then the memory wouldn't just be of Exile, but everything that came before it in some other world. Trial or not, that world ... likely existed somewhere. The events would still... feel real.]
He had his freedom, in the end. I don't know if it's worth the price he paid.
[The price Zack paid. What would it be like, remembering killing one lover? Raising a weapon against the other? His own wounded fury had faded a bit with time, but the scales hadn't. No wings and halo returned. They'd been right about him all along, and all he'd done was prove it.]
... I thought she sent you back to your time. She told me once that there's a chance of altering fate even for the dead, and when ...that other you appeared, it seemed.. [Excuses. Hollow, empty excuses to his own ears, how must it sound to someone else? How must it sound to his victim? How would it have sounded to the numberless dead monsters he'd practiced on?] If she brought you back that way on purpose, then she wouldn't be likely to remove it, just call it 'potential' and let others deal with it. I knew it would hurt to do it myself, but that seemed better than doing nothing.
[Except it wasn't. And he was too quick to want to personally interfere, to do something with those abominable powers than cause damage. Actually helping with them instead? Try to save the man who'd said-
There's not much to be proud of anymore.]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-29 01:09 pm (UTC)The price of freedom is steep, he remembers saying to himself, or something to that effect, on that hill before he died. Coming here, finding Cloud and Aerith, being able to live as they have here- that's a hell of a lot closer to freedom than what the other version of him got. There was nothing free about that life... death. Cloud'll probably kill him for real, one day, in that alternate timeline. Even freed from Sephiroth's enslavement, if he remembers what he did to Aerith in the Lifestream... yeah, there's no freedom from that.
He's not here to argue about the concept of freedom or whatever else, though. He'd rather not argue at all, but that might be inevitable. He doesn't want to fight. But he might want to shout a little bit.]
Why'd you keep wanting to try, after you saw what it did? What happened to finding Baba Yaga?
[It's one thing to try, to see if something will work, if it'll help. It's... another thing to want to keep going, after seeing... that. It wasn't helping, it didn't. He hesitates to call it torture - it wasn't intentional pain, just a side effect of the real effort - but it sure sounded close. It sounded like blood murder. Felt like it. The effort of helping was killing Zack.
He doesn't think he'd have had the resilience to try again, if he'd heard a noise like that.]
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Date: 2025-08-29 01:34 pm (UTC)[It felt uncomfortably vulnerable, having his new location of safety and distance no longer secure and isolated after such little time.
Maybe he deserved that, from Zack.
Would he have done any of it, if he knew it was a Trial? ... Probably.]
Pain's temporary. It didn't seem worse than things I survived before. I knew it would hurt but it wouldn't last. I don't know why there was wounds reopening, that's never happened before.
[His grasp of what is and is not normal levels of pain is badly, wildly skewed thanks to the labs. Outright torture was simply part of training. He always recovered eventually.
The cries of gulls make a strange backdrop.]
If Baba Yaga was the reason some version of you was here like that, it didn't seem like she'd help. And ... knowing how you and Cloud feel about her.. I thought it'd be better this way. It would be terrible for a little bit but then it would be over
[Then maybe he could save someone.]
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Date: 2025-08-29 03:16 pm (UTC)He hadn't been in a good state back in Exile to fully register the changes in Sephiroth, either. The horns, the tail. Telltale indicators of a myth. It's... strange, to see. After so long. He's been in Folkmore long enough to know that Myth doesn't mean evil, necessarily. It's a frame of mind more than a judgment call. There's some cool Myths around. Also some asshole Legends, surely. They're not defined by what Thirteen thinks of them. He wonders what Sephiroth does, though.
What Seph says isn't... wrong, not entirely. Pain is usually temporary. It's just that the pain Zack's more familiar with, to that degree, only has one ending. He's felt it 3 times now, and it all went the same way, in the end. Just... this one, someone came in time to stop it.
He doesn't like it.]
Why did you call Cloud?
[He's grateful, mind. Without Cloud's interference, he'd probably be dead. Probably also brought back by Thirteen, sure, since that's how it works. But then Cloud would likely kill Sephiroth, and even Zack isn't sure they could come back from that. The "what if" of it all kind of spooks him. They came so close. There is, somewhere in what's happened and what could happen, a point of no return. Just like back home, when Nibelheim burned and Sephiroth proved he didn't care anymore. Zack's not there yet in this world, but this was nearer to it than he's comfortable with. Knowing what he knows, now. Still not sure how to ask about that one.]
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Date: 2025-08-29 03:35 pm (UTC)Isolation was better.]
Didn't think about it, just did it.
[This is a mumble, he still didn't really have an answer for why beyond some autopilot certainty that Cloud would definitely do his best to make sure Zack was safe.
Which. Well. That was true. He knew it was their combined resolution that was able to free them in the end from his final, vicious command.]
I realized afterward that there really ... was no way it wasn't all going to be my fault again and I shouldn't have said anything- [And here is a brief flicker of something that sounds awfully like some deeply felt, ugly anger, expression briefly darkening, but control or some other emotion erases it back to muted unhappiness and the edges of clinical chill.] But by then he was already on his way. Reunion made certain he'd find us. I wanted Vincent but he's ...
[A clawed hand raises slightly, a small negating gesture. Gone. No starlight ball to be found. It's been too long now.]
Maybe I rushed and that's why it went bad.
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Date: 2025-08-29 09:15 pm (UTC)There's one thing he did need, apparently. Something he wasn't getting from an ex-Turk who started this all out by shooting him. Something he definitely wasn't getting during all those years at Shinra, with Hojo. And... something he hasn't been getting from Zack, either. He's been thinking about that, in between the nightmares and the horror and the need to stay far, far away. (A feeling they'd evidently shared these past several weeks.)
Few things he needs to get addressed before they can think about approaching that, though.]
Is that the only thing you regret? Calling him? Or rushing?
[He kinda doubts that, considering the vibe. Seph's repressing, it showed for only a moment but Zack's watching for it, now.]
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Date: 2025-08-29 10:48 pm (UTC)There's no immediate answer, he just pulls his knees up to his chest, the ridged scaly tail coiling around him in an ineffective barrier. Text was nice, text allowed distance, allowed time to measure and prepare, but without it, silence works while he tried to formulate something that wasn't just immediate reaction. In a few more years his masks will be good enough to obscure everything, but muting is the best he can do. Resignation is still a bitter taste, unwelcome. The coil of gray-silver scale tightens slowly around himself much the way he'd use his wings when sufficiently upset, but there's no reassurance to be found. He was still angry about much of it, but that too didn't matter. None of it went the way it was supposed to.]
No. [A breath.] It wasn't a lie or a manipulation, I wanted to help. I didn't just want to ... experiment, or see what I could do, I know what I can do. But he was right too. [That other Zack and Cloud were right about so many things.] Both of them were. I've thought about it a lot; it was as much about me, and I didn't care how much pain it cost. I wanted to save the only person I've ever met stupid enough to believe that I..
[He shakes his head slightly to dismiss the lingering thought. It didn't matter.]
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Date: 2025-08-31 03:15 am (UTC)Zack waits while he thinks it through, at first patiently, but because Zack is Zack he ends up pacing a bit, boots shuffling through the sand. He doesn't do his standard squats, though, which if nothing else is proof that he's taking this seriously, paying attention. Squats are for less serious wait sessions, not "please explain what the fuck".
And when Sephiroth starts talking, he stops, and he listens. Quietly, his gaze focused, though not always on the teen himself. He gazes off at the ocean, hands on his hips, watching the clouds in the sky, the sweeping waves. It's nice, here. He can see why Seph is hiding out in this place. Kind of reminds him of Costa del Sol, water and sun, a place that should have been a vacation but often ended up just a reminder of some lousy experiences.
If Sephiroth's goal was to get a rankle out of him for the 'stupid' comment, he doesn't rise to it. He's been called worse, for certain. (He doesn't agree that it was stupid, either. Nor, unspoken, that it didn't matter. It mattered a lot, still.)
One very crucial thing is missing, though.]
And that last order you gave? What about that?
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Date: 2025-08-31 03:38 am (UTC)[The word choice is deliberate. Even if it was quiet, there's no lie. There were things he absolutely did regret about it, but not the outcome.
It hadn't been Zack, supposedly. Those were the bitter, furious, deeply painful words of another man. Except everything told him it was in all the ways that matter.]
The point was to give them an order they'd fight with everything they had, and to make them feel even a little bit of what they made me feel while doing it. Cloud got what he deserved; I don't regret that either. He deserves worse than what I did, if any of the things people keep claiming about me being 'just a kid' were ever even marginally true. He's wanted a monster to fight since he found out I was here and pushed for it every time we crossed paths.
[There's those little flickers of masked fury again.]
Isn't it convenient he now has the keys to make sure no version of me can ever control him again.
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Date: 2025-09-01 11:56 pm (UTC)No one deserved that. Not you, either. What he'd said or done to you before, when you hadn't done anything, that wasn't right. I pushed back at him for you, because I believed it. But what he walked in on, what you were doing that day- that was you. You made that choice. What you wanted to happen doesn't change how it looked.
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Date: 2025-09-02 12:46 am (UTC)You pushed back? He still strangled me to death. He still threatens and tries to intimidate every time we cross paths, demanding I do things exactly his way and retaliating when I don't, even if his directions were ridiculously vague. Anything I could have done would have been his latest excuse to attack, even if I'd done nothing at all. And even when I told him what I was trying to do, he twisted it into being proof of what he already believed.
[And a part of him still admired the man for all he'd accomplished. The rest of him resented it; he knew exactly how every encounter would inevitably go, pretending otherwise did no good. The only Cloud that didn't... wasn't real. And there wasn't a moment of time that passed that he wished he hadn't woken from that dream. None of this would have happened.
The hurt of having Zack's rage and hate turn on him was still fresh enough to burn anew. One hand jerks up, expression gone bitter; he knows the argument that follows, Vincent used it often enough.]
You don't have to remind me he's suffered through terrible things that justify his actions. I've been told. At great length. But he has gone out of his way to make himself my enemy, and I am not regretful for finally treating him like one. I'm not. He wanted a monster, they both did. Something to feel justified in hating. They succeeded. I'm not sorry.
[So much for not lying. He's still not good at it when emotions run high, and the bitterness dies like a candle pinched off, leaving dull pain behind in its wake. He had plenty of regrets, including that one.]
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Date: 2025-09-02 01:59 am (UTC)Cloud did what?
[When did that happen? How did he miss it?]
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Date: 2025-09-02 02:38 am (UTC)But he moves a little, straightening just enough to hold out taloned hands and mime wrapping them around an unprotected throat.]
Like getting the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube.
[It's possible his method of toothpaste acquisition is a bit harsher than most people's.
Slowly he lowers his hands again, expression returning to blankness.]
I could have dealt with it, I have all this time until now. I could have held out forever. It didn't matter if he hated me, if he killed me, if he'd do it again given the chance.
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Date: 2025-09-03 02:04 am (UTC)Zack grimaces. He doesn't even know how to begin addressing all of that. This goes so much deeper than he's equipped to handle. It feels like yet another losing battle, like with Angeal, like with Genesis. Like with Sephiroth in the past, in the future, in Nibelheim when all the dreams ended.
He reminds himself: it got as bad as he did because he left. He can't leave anymore. He can't leave it alone.]
He shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I didn't know.
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Date: 2025-09-03 02:46 am (UTC)[Thirteen took care of being dead before he could do it himself. The experience was not one he cared to repeat, unlike the much nicer second death.
For all that Vincent inevitably greeted his mistakes with a resigned sort of sadness, he missed the man's presence. There has been no rescue, ever, but there could at least be some solace to be found afterwards.
The teen scrubs his face with one hand, sinking a little where he sat, the moment's reignited indignation dying away again to something very like defeat.]
I do regret it was you. It should have worked.
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Date: 2025-09-03 03:10 am (UTC)[Zack's quick to shake his head. There's no way he could agree on that. He won't say he wished Sephiroth had told him, though he's thinking it. He knows why. At least, he can make an educated guess. He's too close. It's not his problem. Plenty of reasons not to, probably not enough to say a damn thing.
It sucks. All of it, it sucks.]
I wish it'd worked. I know how bad you wanna fix things. [And he wishes it hadn't made everything worse.] Don't... don't do that again.
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Date: 2025-09-03 09:43 am (UTC)Mentioning it at all, knowing how meaningless it ultimately ever would be so long as death lacked teeth, really did lend weight to Cloud's words. It's all manipulation, isn't it?]
Which part.
[Even now, was any of this explanation anything more than more deception? Why bother with a lie when the truth worked just as well? For all that Zack said it wasn't him and the terrible cutting pain of his words and his hatred therefore weren't Zack's fault or responsibility, he still had those memories. It might have just as well happened to him; Sephiroth didn't know it was someone else at the time when every single sign said it absolutely was the man he knew, including his relic.
An explanation was just trying to downplay what he'd done, wasn't it?]
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Date: 2025-09-03 08:00 pm (UTC)The- controlling, with Jenova. I don't care if you think it won't work anymore. Don't try it on me. You got no right. It was cruel. I didn't- I didn't think you were capable of that. I didn't deserve it.
[He'd believed in Sephiroth, before. Thought that the cruelty presented in his own timeline was an effect of Jenova, that his friend couldn't do that sort of thing without being driven by alien whispers. To experience it was... beyond wretched. He hadn't personally lived the un-life that Zack had endured, but he experienced it here, for that brief time between leaving Never Fade and fading away in the mud of Exile, remembers his body forced to move on its own, obedient to the whims of the cells in his blood and the orders of an angry teenager.
The point is this, the point is that. Intent counts for fuck all, in his mind. It might not have worked. And if Sephiroth's order had stuck, if he hadn't been able to fight it, if he'd killed Cloud like he'd been a breath away from doing- that would have been a point of no return for them. He'd just as likely tried to kill Sephiroth himself if they crossed paths after. He has limits, lines not to be crossed. Someone willing to do that to a friend is... not someone he wants to be around.]
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Date: 2025-09-03 09:42 pm (UTC)[Before he can finish saying it, however softly it had been, he silences himself.
It didn't matter that he'd been horrified when he realized why Zack was acting so strange. It didn't matter that his final, vicious order hadn't been unprovoked, or that it wasn't something he'd ever do on a whim out of nowhere. It didn't matter that Cloud and Zack had shattered the fragile dream of being able to defy fate and really help someone, their accusations and hatred like acid in the wound left behind. None of it mattered at all, though maybe it would have if he'd chosen to act differently.
He chose to give in and be what they expected.
He chose to give up. Nobody forced him to take that pain and make it a weapon, and hit them exactly where he knew it'd hurt the worst.
That was all on him. Only him.]
I won't.
[There's no inflection in his voice to color it one way or another, leaning just enough to rest his head in his arms in unspoken surrender. Whether or not he wanted to try to puppet Zack again he couldn't anyway; Zack, as he should be, as he was meant to be, was out of his ability to control. Or that even if the other one were to reappear he wouldn't be able to bring himself to do anything about it. But that didn't need to be said, it'd be singularly unhelpful. So he doesn't. What he does add is quiet, though still audible over the hiss of waves on the sand.]
I already disposed of the remaining samples and infected monsters. I haven't gone back for further instruction.
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Date: 2025-09-03 09:57 pm (UTC)But he stops, and Zack listens instead. And when Sephiroth finishes, his shoulders slump a little, and he presses both hands to his face, rubbing them up and down.]
Okay, [he manages,] Good. Thank you.
[As he drags his hands down one final time, looking over at Sephiroth, Zack has to marvel at how young he looks. Even with the grim new features, the horns and the tail and the claws, looking less human than ever, something out of a summon materia or that freaky demon cave Genesis made him crawl through to kick his ass... even now. Hunched and hiding and quiet, he looks so young.
He takes a step forward, then another, approaching not cautiously, not angrily, just the steady normal stride Zack always uses. Whether he closes the distance fully depends on Sephiroth's reaction to his approach.]
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Date: 2025-09-03 10:49 pm (UTC)Though it's absolutely certain Sephiroth knows exactly where Zack is, can hear him moving across sand and then firmer ground, he doesn't move. He hasn't really gone anywhere from his spot on his porch since Zack arrived and that wasn't changing now, resigned to whatever's coming. Whatever Zack intends, there's no effort to flee or defend himself, the creature in the shape of a guard hound still utterly absent.]
You should go, if that's it. He'll be waiting.
[It's not a dismissal, but it might as well be. Isolation was the point of making a home so far from the rest of what passed for Folkmore civilization, and he'd return to it as soon as he was able. There's less risk of hurting someone if no-one was around.
The trouble with young monsters is if allowed to, they grow up.]
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Date: 2025-09-03 11:48 pm (UTC)Maybe he should go. But too bad, he isn't.]
So. Myth, huh. How you feeling about that?
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